


The Untouchable Weak Gods, Their Weak Subjects, and how they found a new teacher.

by Moon6Shadow



Category: Bleach
Genre: Blanket Permission Statement Available, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Grey Soul Society, Implied/Referenced Mental Health Issues, Long Live Feedback (LLF) Comment Project Friendly, Reposting is only allowed for historic preservation with credit; not for personal or financial gain., how Soul Society works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 21:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19858357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moon6Shadow/pseuds/Moon6Shadow
Summary: How did the Shinigami come to be so weak? The short answer, lack of team work, motivation and complacency but it goes a little bit deeper than that.Musings of a slightly edited review on Of Tiger Cubs and Chaotic Invasions by Akaluan (Companion piece for Dragon Eclipse) which gained a musing ‘plot’ bunny that took off mid review. So Mild to Medium Spoilers alert! Up to ch.29 or a few chapters below for Dragon Eclipse, Ch.1 Tiger Cubs.





	The Untouchable Weak Gods, Their Weak Subjects, and how they found a new teacher.

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Of Tiger Cubs and Chaotic Invasions](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13715448) by [Akaluan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaluan/pseuds/Akaluan). 
  * Inspired by [Dragon Eclipse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900900) by [Akaluan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaluan/pseuds/Akaluan). 
  * Inspired by [Once More](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/499756) by Gone Wanderlust. 



> Brief introduction for Kaito: He helps train the teens and has a bad history with the shinigami, that the teens know about but he leaves it mostly unsaid so the teens are trying to put the pieces together. 
> 
> -  
> So, this is only edited a little with a few small outtakes shown with '-’ but that’s about it. Oh, there is also some capitals for emphasis that are there because it was a review so I didn’t have italics initially. Except I ended up with an italics (/) and capitals combo so the italics are now official and I left in the capitals so there is still the italics and capitals combo.

-

Insert Additional Tags from Akaluan: Kaito you're not as clever as you think you are, stop trying to be a lone wolf, the teens aren't letting you go

Totally adore the tags, I mean really Kaito, they (Ichigo, Uryu, Chad and Orihime) are breaking into a highly guarded warrior fortress against unbelievable odds for a girl they barely know, or in Ishida’s hate due to her kind, exactly how far do you think they’re going to go for a teacher who they absolutely adore and are incredibly protective of and who has bad history with Shinigami?

I’m curious as to how the gang’s eyes being forcibly opened to the darker side of the spirit world will change things since it won’t be mostly swept under a rug due to being forced to focus on fighting for their lives all the time, like last time. Kaito’s PTSD and their desire to protect him will ensure such thoughts stay front and centre and has already gotten them to notice things they mostly overlooked last time in their mostly single-minded focus on saving Rukia.

-

Those last four sections together work so, so well as an ending and really show how far Ishida and Ichigo have come in working together and supporting each other compared to their cannon selves and the emotional and physical support of Kaito... the bit where Ichigo and Ishida fell in to step at his left and right hand is truly where the gang takes off for me in this story and where Kaito truly becomes their leader, the new Ichigo and the glue that holds them all together, even if he doesn’t realise it yet. If this was an action movie with a hero shot of where the team comes together, that would have been it for me, with Orihime and Chad automatically falling perfectly into step beside them.

I totally want to read someone’s reactions on watching the team fall into step and work together flawlessly now, although Urahara and Yuroichi may have to give Kaito a kick up the ass and force him to train to work with the others against them in order to be able to fight flawlessly with the rest of the gang first. (I’m going to assume the reason they didn’t before is to ensure the others could learn to fight without depending on someone much stronger than them to protect them, plus they ran out of time.)

Also, it’d be a good excuse for fighting practice against the Vizards particularly considering they’re all a little out of practise and have spent a century literally suppressing their true power. Actually if Kaito can manage it he’ll likely try and encourage the Shinigami to brush up on their skills, or at least, strongly encourage the captains and lieutenants to learn to go bankai, or at least shikai, against powerful enemies since it becomes obvious very quickly in cannon that they are used to holding back, granted for a very good reason considering their power can literally crush or even kill those weaken then them, and they very rarely come across anything truly powerful till now.

Also, I wonder how long it will take Kaito to start knocking heads together over the stupid one on one honour fighting against powerful enemies. Plus, I imagine it would be a great moral boost for weaker shinigami.

In cannon weaker shinigami got out of the way or became cannon fodder because they simply didn’t know what to do against enemies more powerful than them aside from ‘let the captains handle it’. Only now along comes Kaito and his gang who are inexperienced teenage humans who are barely into double digits, practically babies in their eyes, taking down captains! Personally, I think it would be an insane moral boost for lots of shinigami who are used to getting stronger being a very long slow process that only wannabe captains really push for because high ranking positions are empty so very, very rarely.

Bankia and even shikai to a lesser extent are practically seen as godly powers in the shinigami world, not only because so few have them but also because _so few are encouraged to have them_. Seriously if you have a bankia your practically got your Captain’s cape in the bag signed, sealed and delivered except captains are replaced so rarely that it almost never happens and thus very few people set their sights on such an unreachable goal of becoming, practically a god in their culture. Which really explains why Toshiro, Gin and Tosen became Captains at such a young age, since very few people are so driven to master their powers, Toshiro did it out of fear of hurting people, Gin and Tosen for revenge. Sure they only really became captains because Aizen cleared the way for them however they were still very young, practically just out of the academy. Why would the head captain pick young, inexperienced children over others who had been working as shinigami for centuries? _Because he had no other choice. Because only the younglings were passionate enough to still work hard at increasing their powers_

All those other shinigami who had been stuck in dead end jobs for centuries? Yeah they weren’t going anywhere, they knew how the chain of command worked, knew that the chain of command only shifted once in a blue moon every thousand or so years and had been living during peace time ever since the Quincy were ‘wiped out’ why on earth would they waste time getting stronger when there was no reason to and they had other jobs to do? What was the point in practicing in their precious free time? All the high jobs were taken, and all the hollows were small fry these days, the captains only every stepped out on the battle field once every other blue moon so why on earth should they push themselves so hard?

Of course, then Aizen came along and the command got reshuffled and some people likely grumbled at having to listen to these young inexperienced upstarts then it all settled down again and nothing changed so it was all back to business as usual. Then Kaito came.. Kaito came and essentially disabled the entire Soul Society army force with PRANKS and brought a bunch of naive, inexperienced KIDS with him who while weak apart banded together to take down CAPTAINS! Also (according to Bleach cannon) they suddenly had great and powerful enemies crawling out of the woodwork everywhere! Before they may have despaired or stood back and let the Captains, _Their Gods_ , handle things only they knew how to win now. They’d watched a bunch of CHILDREN bring down The Gods by working together, they knew what they had to do, knew that if they worked together even gods could crumble!

Okay my plot bunnies decided to run off on me. XD I remember reading a fan fic where Shunsui started noticing that the regular shinigami had stopped talking to their captains and coming to them for advice because they ‘didn’t want to bother them with their petty every day concerns’ and how that _bothered him_ essentially he realised that the captains had become so raised on pedestals and seen as so far away that his people no longer came to him for help. That the captains were seen as so high and mighty and so far away that Soul Society had started to crumble from within. That they were seen as so _unquestionable_ that nobody _dared_ to express a contrary opinion.

Taking that idea a step further, if people did express a contrary opinion they were only taken notice of when they got so desperate or consumed with hate that they resorted to extreme violence to make their point, which was promptly sniffed out and shut down instantly by those in charge. Basically, my understanding of that perspective was Soul Society had started to worship (or hate) their captains as practically gods. Hence battles where captains are needed are ‘battles of the gods’ and not somewhere where regular shinigami would dare tread without becoming cannon fodder or ‘getting in the way’. Regular shinigami had stopped striving to improve and believing in themselves when fighting a powerful foe and had placed their faith in their captains, their gods. Except their gods had become stagnant or were inexperienced and in cannon the shinigami saw their gods falter, saw them struggle and despaired and hoped and prayed because their gods, _their captains_ were their last hope, for if the gods fell what could weakinglings like them do?

Then in this verse Kaito showed up, then his gang showed up and even if Kaito never even spared the average shinigami a second glance he would have encouraged them simply by leading by example, only HE DID, he HELPED (leading into spoilers here but...) a shinigami, an ENEMY, was willing to grant Kaito help simply because _he gave one tiny little teacher’s tip to a Shinigami to help with something they had struggled with for aggges when nobody else would_ this is a BIG DEAL! Only it shouldn’t have been, it really, really shouldn’t have been _but it was!_

That right there really sums up what the mindset of shinigami are right now, yes they are an organisation but they fight _separately_ , they learn _separately_ , they don’t help each other, they don’t work _together_ , they don’t fight _together_. Their warrior mindset is based around fighting one on one, not working together, only Kaito is going to show them a different way and likely is also going to achieve godly status by pulling out his bankia at some point. A god who stopped to give a helpful teaching tip to a lowly shinigami just out of the academy who was also his enemy, a god who has obviously dedicated time and effort to teach the next generation and not only to teach them how to fight but even how to fight _together_ against stronger opponents till they are strong enough to stand on their own, he has taught them how to SURVIVE in a world were a single misstep means your death and most shinigami academy graduates don’t survive long enough to learn how to survive because nobody goes out of their way to teach them or even protect them until they survive on their own. It’s a dog eat dog world full of hollows out there and if they’re not strong enough to survive then their obviously not shinigami material.

....so that just happened, umm hello plot bunny? I was only trying to leave a review. ^^; XD :)

Also, in terms of people hating the Captains, gods, I don’t remember where I read it but in some story it was mentioned how in the Soul Society protests don’t exist. How can average souls protest their living conditions against a literal army with Captains, gods, who can literally bring them to their knees or crush them to death simply by standing still and releasing their power!? Short answer THEY CAN’T. (Wonder how long it takes the gang to figure _that out_.) Nor can they protest when certain people decide it’s for the good of the world balance for a random group of souls to be gathered up and _slaughtered_ to protect the soul balance. (It may be a good thing Kaito hasn’t had that experience yet, he has enough nightmares and reasons to hate certain shinigami already...)

Speaking of balance, I wonder if Urahara will start researching a way for Quincy to kill without eradicating souls, he may even have dabbled in it before. I mean Kaito has shinigami cleansing powers now but Ishida doesn’t. I wonder if Kaito will suggest Ishida focus on herding souls towards the others to kill when it’s safe to do so, although he still isn’t that fond of hollows so maybe not....

Still the whole Kaito needs to ensure he only kills with his hollow/shinigami powers and not his Quincy powers would be an interesting conversation and realisation for him. Possibly a rather painful realisation considering how he has had to forcibly numb himself to the thought that every time he killed to protect, he was eradicating every. single. soul. that hollow had ever eaten. I wonder if that was even one of the reasons his Grandfather died, old age combined with the desire not to eradicate human souls. Although he did still teach Ishida how to kill/eradicate hollows even if he desperately hoped that he would one day work together with the Shinigami.

* * *

Additional: Lower Level Shinigami Point of View

Title: The Untouchable Weak Gods, Their Weak Subjects, and how they found a new teacher.

Summary: The Captains lived so long, and the Quincy War so long ago, that there was never any real need for a lot of strong fighters. With only the youngest motivated enough, or the most powerful desperate enough to learn control, that they achieved Bankia. Thus over time the gap between the Captain’s and the lower ranked grew as the Captain’s achieved God status, capable of killing someone simply by standing still and crushing you with their reiatsu. They were untouchable and the lower ranks, and by extension the Captains, withered as they became complacent in their roles of gods and (fearful) worshipers. 

And so, the Soul Society ground to a halt, to the point where a Bankai, in and of itself, was an instant ticket for promotion, as long as there was a once in a blue moon position to be filled. With their untouchable Gods…

As long as you fought them one on one as per the Shinigami honour at least.

**Author's Note:**

> So, ages ago I wrote a review on Akaluan’s story and the ‘plot’ bunny bit me and then people feed it carrots (comments) and reminded me this bunny existed and I want to keep it so here it is with it’s own post! I did actually try to make it less of a review…but yeah that didn’t work at all, since I’d be chopping essential pieces out. So yay spoilers! And it being confusing for people you haven’t read the inspirational story, but at least if you have read the main story it will make sense.
> 
> Other inspirations:  
> So I wrote this awhile ago so I don't really remember what I was thinking of when I wrote it and even then I think I was drawing on knowledge of something I hadn't read in ages. So I think the reference to 'shinigami don't have wars amongst themselves' comes from Once More By Gone Wanderlust on FanFiction.net, if it wasn't that story then it still gives you an idea of why trying to fight the shinigami with those without spiritual power is a _really_ bad idea. So even if it wasn't actually that story I was thinking of for that specific phrase, it was still definitely an inspiration.
> 
> And there was also a story where I think Shunsui Kyōraku mentioned 'lower rank shinigami being worried about 'bothering' the older captains and thus not reaching out for help and how that _worried him_' which I thought might be in Swinging Pendulum by cywscross but not sure I didn't see it at a quick glance through. I'm thinking a story similar to 'To Take a Stand by Starrie_Wolf', which probably also deserves some credit as potential inspiration, just I'm also thinking of a story from Shunsui's perspective and more mental musing. Unless I'm remembering wrong... regardless it had a very similar tone to Take a Stand's summary and I'm pretty sure I read it around the time I first wrote this review so it was fresh in my mind and hence the direction it ended up taking. So I either forgot to bookmark it or it's hiding amongst my insane number of bookmarks. So if anyone knows of something similar to what I've mentioned feel free to add it in the comments as a potential inspiration.
> 
> -  
> Thank you everyone for reading!! <3
> 
> #Fandom for Fun, so not looking for critics but pretty much all polite feedback including Whisper and Murmur comments are totally welcome. If you've left feedback in the form of kudos, bookmarks and/or comments I likely won't see feedback immediately, but I will see it eventually so thank you!! 
> 
> Open series to see my detailed [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject) statement or see [Poetry and Short Stories](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1007304) series notes for my Blanket Permission Statement but basically, as long as you credit, yes you can.


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